Understanding the Changing
Context of Faith Formation
Lutheran Outdoor Ministries Conference
(Tuesday Session)
PowerPoint available online:
www.LifelongFaith.com – Go to Presentations
 Part 1. Understanding Social, Cultural,
Religious & Technological Forces
 Part 2. Understanding How Christianity Is
Changing & Why
 Part 3. Understanding Key Factors in
Promoting Faith Growth in the First Third of
Life
 Part 4. Interpreting the Spiritual and
Religious Needs of People Today
No Religious
Affiliation
The Rise of
Digital Media
& the
Internet
Aging Baby
Boomers
Spiritual, not
Religious
The
Changing
Landscape
Declining
Religious
Socialization
Declining
Church
Participation
Increasing
Diversity &
Pluralism
Changing
Marriage &
Family Life




15% of all Americans claim no religious
affiliation
25% of all 18-29 years
10% drop in the number of Christians
The challenge to Christianity in the U.S. does not
come from other religions but from a rejection of all
forms of organized religion.
Three Seismic Shifts
 Major Shock: The Sixties Revolution
 Aftershock #1 (1970s-80s): The Rise
of Evangelicals and Conservative
Churches, and the Religious Right
 Aftershock #2 (1990s-2000s): The
Rise of Secular Generations
 The rise of the Nones in the 1990s was
heavily driven by generational factors.
 The incidence of Nones was about 5-7% in
the pre-boomer generations who reach
adulthood before 1960
 Double to about 10-15% among the
boomers (who came of age in the 1960s,
70s, and 80s)
 After 2000 doubled again to about 2030% among the post-boomers (who came
of age in the 1990s and 2000s).
 Being raised with no religion fueled
cohort change
 The Nones were disproportionately raised
in nonreligious backgrounds, so some of
them are the children of boomers who
have discard formal religious affiliations a
generation ago.
 On the other hand, the rise of the Nones
is apparent even among young people
whose parents were religiously observant.

Putnam and Campbell suggest the
dramatic contrast between a young
generation increasingly liberal on certain
moral and lifestyle issues (though still
potentially open to religious feelings and
ideals) and an older generation of
religious leaders who seemed to them
consumed by the political fight against
homosexuality and gay marriage was an
important source of the second
aftershock.

When asked why the rejected religious
identification, the new Nones reported that
“they became unaffiliated, as least in part,
because they think of religious people as
hypocritical, judgmental, or insincere. Large
numbers also say they became unaffiliated
because they think that religious
organizations focus too much on rules and
not enough on spirituality. This youthful
generation seems unwilling or unable to
distinguish the stance of the most visible,
most political, and most conservative
religious leaders from organized religion in
general.
 Today, 18% of 18-39 year olds say that are
“spiritual, but not religious” compared to only
11% a decade ago.


Declining worship attendance
Declining participation in celebration of
sacraments & rites of passage



Diversity of ethnic cultures & nationalities
No single authority exercises supremacy; no
single belief or ideology dominations
Tapestry of religious and spiritual alternatives
and choices




Delaying marriage
Having fewer children and later in life
Decreasing number of children in two-parent
households
Increasing number of unmarried couples living
together
A
Family
99
Not a
Family
1
Married Couple without Children
Single Parent with Children
Unmarried Couple with Children
Same-Sex Couple with Children
88
86
80
63
10
12
18
34
Same-Sex Couple without Children
Unmarried Coupled without Children
45
43
52
54
Married Coupled with Children
Pew Research, 2011


Fully eight-in-ten adults younger than 30 say a
same-sex couple with children is a family, more
than double the proportion of those 65 and
older who share this view (80% vs. 37%).
Among those ages 30 to 49, two-thirds (67%)
see a same-sex couple with children as a
family, compared with 58% of all 50- to 64year-olds.
(Pew Research, 2011)
Declining Family Religious Socialization
Yet we know….
 Parent Influence: The single most important
social influence on the religious and spiritual
lives of children, teens, and emerging adults
is their parents.
 Embedded Family Religious Practices:
Effective religious socialization comes about
through specific religious activities that are
firmly intertwined with the daily habits of
family life
“. . . teenagers with seriously religious
parents are more likely than those
without such parents to have been
trained in their lives to think, feel,
believe, and act as serious religious
believers, and that that training
“sticks” with them even when the
leave home and enter emerging
adulthood.”
5 of the 6 paths to highly religious emerging adults
involve parents, parental faith, & family faith practices
On Jan. 1, 2011, the oldest Baby Boomers will turn
65. Every day for the next 19 years, about 10,000
more will cross that threshold.
 By 2030, when all Baby Boomers will have turned
65, fully 18% of the nation’s population will be at
least that age (13% today)
 We are witnessing the emergence of a new stage of
life between adult midlife–typically focused on
career and child-rearing–and old age, traditionally
marked by increasing frailty and decline. This new
stage of life spans several decades and is
characterized by generally good health, relative
financial stability, and an active, engaged lifestyle.




93% of teens & young adults are online
“Computer in your pocket” - increasing
mobile access - iPhone
8-18 year olds spend on average 7½ hours a
day with media
 If only the youngest cohort in society changes (and
then persists in that new direction throughout their
own life cycle), society as whole changes inexorably
but almost imperceptibly, like a massive
supertanker changing course.
 If the differences between one generation and the
next are small, then generationally based social
change will be real (and significant) but very slow. If
for some reason a younger generation deviates
substantially from its predecessors, then the
aggregate social change may be quick—significant
over a few decades.
1. Increasing number of “Nones”
2. Increasing number of “Spiritual but not Religious”
3. Accepting and embracing diversity: culturally,
sexually, and in family structures
4. Declining participation in Sunday worship and
sacraments/rites of passage (marriage, baptism)
5. Living together, marrying later, and having children
later
6. Declining levels of family faith practice & socialization


Significant Generational Change began in the
early 1990s among the younger generations
and is influencing society and the older
generations
These trends are having a significant impact on
a Life Cycle approach to faith formation and
church life, in general.
 fewer marriages – marrying later – fewer
baptisms – fewer young families – lower Sunday
worship attendance……..
The "Great Emergence" is a
generalized social, political,
economic, intellectual, and
cultural shift.
Every 500 years or so, the
church—and the world—
experience huge social,
political, economic, and
cultural shifts.
"Every 500 years the church
feels compelled to hold a
giant rummage sale."
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
500 Year Cycles
Time of Christ
Monastic Culture & Dark
Ages
Great Schism:
East-West
Reformation
Great Emergence
Every 500 years the empowered
structures of institutionalized
Christianity, whatever they may be
at the time, become an intolerable
carapace* that must be shattered
in order that renewal and new
growth may occur. When the
mighty upheaval happens, history
shows us, there are always at least
three consistent results or
corollary events.
* the hard upper shell of a turtle or crustacean.
A new more vital form of
Christianity emerges.
2. The organized expression of
Christianity which up until
then had been the dominant
one is reconstituted into a
more pure and less ossified
expression of its former self.
1.
3.
Every time the incrustations of
an overly established
Christianity have been broken
open, the faith has spread—
and been spread—
dramatically into new
geographic and demographic
areas, thereby increasing
exponentially the range and
depth of Christianity’s reach as
a result of its time of unease
and distress.




Toward the Great Emergence
Darwin: evolution
Faraday: field theory, electromagnetic forces
Freud & Jung: psychology &
“the new world of the mind”
Campbell: universality and
commonality of religious
thought & sensibility
Historical
Consciousness
(“Real Jesus”
Pentecostalism
Mobility (Car)
Literary
Deconstruction
(“no absolute
truth”)
Self Help Groups
Uncertainty
Principle
(Heisenberg)
Quantum
Physics &
Relativity
(Einstein)
Role of Women
Great
Emergence
Family
Reconfiguration
A New Self?
A whole coterie of scientists began
to question the old, standing
definitions of “self.”
 Who are you?
 What are you?
 How do you know?
 How do you know you know?
 What is a soul?
(And how do you “save” a soul?)
Essential Questions
 Where now is our authority? –
the fundamental or
foundational question of all
human existence for an
individual or social group
 Without an answer to it, the
individual personality (or group)
fall into disarray and ultimate
chaos.
Essential Questions
 What is human consciousness
and/or the humanness of the
human?
 What is the relation of all
religions to one another—or
how can we live responsibility as
devout and faithful adherents of
one religion in a world of many
religions?
The Gathering Center




A center is emerging – a mélange
of things drawn from the 4
quadrants
From inherited church to new
forms of church – emerging
Christians
A challenge to the boundaries of
established churches
“Backlash” – fundamentalism in a
variety of forms: Scripture and/or
Doctrine/Tradition
Where now is authority?


In Scripture & the community
Networked authority: the church
is a self-organizing system of
relations, symmetrical and
otherwise, between innumerable
member-parts that themselves
form subsets of relations within
their small networks, etc., in
interlacing levels of complexity
No one of the member parts or
connecting networks has the
whole or entire “truth” of
anything.
 Each is only a single working
piece of what is evolving and is
sustainable so long as the
interconnectivity of the whole
remains intact.
 “Crowd-sourcing” –
egalitarianism

Changing Patterns
From…
Believe—Behave—Belong
To…
Belong—Behave—Believe



One simply belongs to
gathering of Christians by a
shared humanity and an
affinity with the group.
One may begin to behave
and think in a way that
informs the whole group.
As behavior begins to
condition living, it also begins
to shape belief until the two
become one.
There are congregations that are
completely new conceptualizations
of what "church" is to be. They are
emergent away from, or emerging up
out of, the traditional flow of
"church" as we normally think of it,
and they are a legitimate new form of
Christianity as surely as, 500 years
ago, bodies protesting the
dominance of Latin Catholicism were
emerging and protesting and forming
new bodies of the faithful and were
legitimately Christian.
Emerging churches are communities that practice the
way of Jesus within postmodern cultures. This definition
encompasses nine practices. Emerging churches:
1) Identify with the life of Jesus
2) Transform the secular realm, and
3) Live highly communal lives
Because of these three activities, they:
4) Welcome the stranger
5) Serve with generosity
6) Participate as producers
7) Create as created beings
8) Lead as a body, and
9) Take part in spiritual activities
4 Scenarios
Two Critical Uncertainties
1.
Will trends in U.S. culture lead people
to become more receptive to organized
religion, and in particular Christianity
or will trends lead people to become
more resistant to organized religion
and Christianity?
2.
Will people’s hunger for and openness
to God and the spiritual life increase
over the next decade or will people’s
hunger for and openness to God and
the spiritual life decrease.
Dominant Cultural Attitude toward Organized Religion
Receptive
Low
High
People’s Hunger for God and the Spiritual Life
Resistant
Scenario 4
Uncommitted
&
Participating
Scenario 1
Vibrant Faith
& Active
Engagement
Scenario 3
Unaffiliated &
Uninterested
Scenario 2
Spiritual but
Not Religious
Youth
Abiders Adapters Assenters Avoiders Atheists
20%
20%
31%
24%
5%
--------------------------------------------------------------Young Adult
Committed
Selected Spiritually Religiously Religiously Irreligious
Traditionalists Adherents Open
Indifferent Disconnected
15%
30%
15% 25%
5%
10%
---------------------------------------------------------------

Abiders: highest levels of religiosity and practice: believe in God,
pray regularly, engage in personal religious practice, attend
services, serve others, think about the meaning of life; most
likely to say their religion is the only true faith

Adapters: high levels of personal religiosity + accepting of other
people’s faiths + attend religious services more sporadically

Assenters: believe in God and feel somewhat close to God, but
they are minimally engaged with their faith and practice only
occasionally. Religion is tangential to other aspects of their lives.

Avoiders: believe in God but have low levels of religious
practice; God is distant, impersonal; and often don’t name a
religious affiliation.

Atheists: don’t believe in God and don’t attend services.



Committed Traditionalists: strong religious faith; articulate
beliefs; actively practice. Personal commitment to faith is a
significant part of their identities and moral reasoning, and
they are at least somewhat regularly involved in some
religious group
Selected Adherents: believe and perform certain aspects of
their religious traditions but neglect and ignore others; more
discriminating about what they are willing to adopt of their
religious tradition’s beliefs and practices
Spiritually Open: not very committed to a religious faith but
are nonetheless receptive to and at least mildly interested in
some spiritual or religious matters.



Religiously Indifferent: neither care to practice religion nor
oppose it; simply not invested in religion either way; too
distracted with and invested in other things in life and
unconcerned with matters of faith to pay any real attention
to religion.
Religiously Disconnected: have little to no exposure or
connection to religious people, ideas, or organizations;
neither interested in nor opposed to religion. Faith simply
has not been a part of their lives in any significant way.
Irreligious: hold skeptical attitudes about and make critical
arguments against religion generally, rejecting the idea of
personal faith
Viewed through the lens of the 4 Scenarios…




Who is your outdoor ministry programming
serving today?
Who do you need to reach and engage?
Whose spiritual and religious needs are your
programs addressing?
Whose spiritual and religious needs do you
need to address?
What could a 21st century approach to faith
formation look like?
 How would we address the diversity of
people’s religious and spiritual needs today?
 How would we engage people? How would
we reach people?
 What technologies would we use?
 What resources would we access?